Friday, August 18, 2006
Bite the Virgin's Head
While Tata worries over a box of suspicious Russian chocolate candies purchased in Missouri (Don't touch 'em Tata), employees of a candy company in California are adoring an ugly 2 inch lump they claim was miraculously formed from dripping chocolate. It might vaguely resemble an attempt at sculpting a plastic Virgin Mary (or the Maltese Falcon) by person wearing thick mittens. It would give me pause if it accidently looked like this candy virgin. They can sell it on eBay, put it in a refrigerated glass display with candles & a donation can in front, or just bite off the "head."
But the religion news that caught my interest today was the legal case of the Bible in the granite trash can. Nobody paid much attention to this peculiar monument in front of the Harris County Texas courthouse, placed there 50 years ago in honor of a local citizen. It contains a real Bible under glass (don't know what what page it's open to). Then, ten years ago, after the Bible was stolen, a judge refurbished it at his own expense, updating it (pop art style) by adding the orange neon light. According to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that change in emphasis also turned the intent from a secular monument into a religious one. I agree completely with the court. But the neon made the monument so strange - like bizarre cemetary statuary - that I would be proud to have it in my town & invite the guys from Weird New Jersey magazine to check it out.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
But the religion news that caught my interest today was the legal case of the Bible in the granite trash can. Nobody paid much attention to this peculiar monument in front of the Harris County Texas courthouse, placed there 50 years ago in honor of a local citizen. It contains a real Bible under glass (don't know what what page it's open to). Then, ten years ago, after the Bible was stolen, a judge refurbished it at his own expense, updating it (pop art style) by adding the orange neon light. According to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, that change in emphasis also turned the intent from a secular monument into a religious one. I agree completely with the court. But the neon made the monument so strange - like bizarre cemetary statuary - that I would be proud to have it in my town & invite the guys from Weird New Jersey magazine to check it out.
